This pressure of rising costs is everywhere and it affects some industries, like gaming, even more. This pressure pushes economies into adopting the practices of "fast food" business. That means practices that produce profits faster, it generates "growth" but at a huge cost in quality of life, weather it is salaries, employment or the actual utility and quality of services and products produced. Expect the next transformation of the industry to be highly praised regardless of its product quality and effects in the employment market, because it will make more "business sense".
2024 may not be kind for game developers.
- Thread starter Silent_Buddha
- Start date
Difficult News About Our Workforce
The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local...
sonyinteractive.com
Closing London?! But they spent large on more, unproven studios of late. These companies feel like they are operating cluelessly IMO. Keep buying talent then closing it down. Or in this case, growing it over 20 years. Responsible for some of the biggest innovations in PlayStation, SingStar and EyeToy, when PS was for everyone and families instead of just Core Gamers.
Edit: I feel PlayStation isn't PlayStation any more. It doesn't appeal to everyone. Sony aren't even caring about that, just chasing a 'core demographic.' the likelihood of me sticking with PS instead of moving to PC diminishes every year. If only PC had a decent OS without all the crap!
Edit: I feel PlayStation isn't PlayStation any more. It doesn't appeal to everyone. Sony aren't even caring about that, just chasing a 'core demographic.' the likelihood of me sticking with PS instead of moving to PC diminishes every year. If only PC had a decent OS without all the crap!
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Accountants are in full control of Playstation now. Playstation have become a mix of EA and Microsoft.
Difficult News About Our Workforce
The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local...
sonyinteractive.com
We're breaking up, but I'm here to help you find someone new with some links to dating websites and a reference.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I think it's funny that some people think that Sony has lost some sort of virtuous "for the gamer" mojo. They've always been a cold hearted corporation. Putting out EyeToy was smart business at the time, not some effort to "make gaming fun for everyone". The reality for Sony is that their PS2/PS3 fans grew up and the new kids are playing on their phones, Switch and PCs more now. Only 11% of PS players are under 16 according to a post here a few days ago and a new Big Little Planet isn't likely bringing kids back in droves. It's not realistic. The job cuts suck, but it's not unexpected that Sony is in the same boat as everyone else.
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Is that because the have moved on and nothing Sony does would keep them, or because Sony did nothing to keep them so they moved on?
Sony still has an opportunity to grab a large portion of gamers under the age of 16. But that won't be with keeping this one piece of software exclusive to Playstation. Like seriously. Before they gut it close down Media Molecule I just want them to release Dreams on more platforms. Put it everywhere. It'll take off. And they'd be able to monetize it.
And it's missed opportunities like this that leaves me baffled with Sony. Oh well. And the Last of US renamed for PS5. Sony's darling studio hasn't released an original game yet this generation. Have we even seen a glimpse that one is coming?
The layoffs make total sense given the rest of the industry are making cuts. It sucks for all the workers getting ker to but totally understandable from a business perspective. I expect more layoffs to come in the next two quarters from Sony.
And it's missed opportunities like this that leaves me baffled with Sony. Oh well. And the Last of US renamed for PS5. Sony's darling studio hasn't released an original game yet this generation. Have we even seen a glimpse that one is coming?
The layoffs make total sense given the rest of the industry are making cuts. It sucks for all the workers getting ker to but totally understandable from a business perspective. I expect more layoffs to come in the next two quarters from Sony.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Imagine if Dreams had released on PC with the modding community that exists on PC?
Regards,
SB
the bubble has exploded. Some fans might think the culprit is Jim Ryan and his petunias, but I don't think that it's his fault in this case. It's just that the videogames industry has too many games, the classics are more valuable now because of there is a lack of ideas, and it's now more money driven than ever.Difficult News About Our Workforce
The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local...
truer words than that have rarely been spoken. That sums up why I'd really like a console/PC with the best things of a console -without the hassle- and the freedom of a PC. But MS has been outsmarted by companies who focused on gaming like Valve and they don't realise it.
VR was always about long term and increasing their portfolio diversity, like their indies / AA push on previous consoles. I don't even think they were losing (that much) money on VR. They were just not making billions with that. But I am pretty sure VR brought new customers into their ecosystem which is all the point of increasing the diversity of their products, what they have being doing and was working since the first PS1.
Some people were interested into Playstation thanks to one or a few AA games (like plenty of people probably bought a PS2 for ICO, or PS4 for Astrobot on PSVR1) then decided to fully commit and buy other games. That was their strategy until 2019 (when they made record profits BTW) but then they suddenly decided to change the plan to follow, like Shifty said, the 'core demographic' strategy which is currently the PC, GAAS and story driven shooters plan hoping they would make even more profits than in the last PS4 era years.
Some people were interested into Playstation thanks to one or a few AA games (like plenty of people probably bought a PS2 for ICO, or PS4 for Astrobot on PSVR1) then decided to fully commit and buy other games. That was their strategy until 2019 (when they made record profits BTW) but then they suddenly decided to change the plan to follow, like Shifty said, the 'core demographic' strategy which is currently the PC, GAAS and story driven shooters plan hoping they would make even more profits than in the last PS4 era years.
where I live, a very small village, some people bought the PS4 for their kids 'cos it was very popular, but that might be an isolated case.
This comes from the PS3 era, when Sony started pushing for power and the core gamers. A very casual friend said it best one day in 2007 or so telling me... "It's just that Nintendo makes fun games, the other two are looking to make only spectacular games to impress people."
The PS2 was the people's console. It had a bit of everything, FF or ICO, and Winnie the Pooh or Barbie games. The nostalgia might kick in, who knows maybe It's time to move on, perhaps the times and the society just changed.
Nowadays Sony tries to push the envelope to have the graphics crown, which is ok an pleases the core gamers. But a PS owner can also play AA games like A Plague Tale Requiem, which has great graphics even being an AA.
Also, John from DF mentioned that the current Sony isn't the Sony people knew. A brother of mine had a PS2 but I didn't live that console era, nor PS1 era, so I don't understand what John was referring too, but I read the discussions and how people felt in that sense back in the day.
Guerilla Games is also getting 10% of its staff cut.
Sorry devs, but Sony needs to be able to afford the next giant check to Square to keep Xbox players from being able to play the new Final Fantasy. Soweeee!
I'm actually hoping Valve will make linux the place to play games. They just need to sort out the anti-cheats. Beyond that they're already a good way there. I could have a NixOS gaming pc that I could just redeploy if it ever got corrupted. Dream scenario.
PS1 and PS2 eras were special times. Consoles back then offered a distinct experience from PCs. Consoles were becoming a gaming experience of their own taking away from the PC space, which is why MS wanted to bridge the gap.
Playstation consoles had games for pretty much every occasion and had the benefit that third parties were making gaming experiences unique to the platform.
The Playstation built an identity around franchises that these days are multi. Having the benefit of reaching critical mass in terms of userbase and having a ton of exclusives from third parties, gave them a lot of room to experiment.
I think 3 major events changed the course.
First major event is when Sony lost momentum with PS3 and with it the growing critical mass from the two previous generations. That changed a lot of things. From that point, all third party franchises and support that were initially guaranteed to be exclusive became multiplatform. A lot of titles that were initially announced as PS exclusives found way on 360 and PC to retain profits. Final Fantasy, Tekken and DMC for example.
Sonly back then publicly acknowledged that third party exclusives were becoming a thing of the past and had to find ways to differentiate themselves with their own efforts. And they did offer a lot of variety.
That meant putting out more of their own internal resources, which increased risk.
Second major event was PC and Console technology and game development becoming more unified. That was MS strategic aim with XBOX. This can be found in interviews about MS's concerns and why they wanted to enter the console business. PC and Console experience became more similar and the differentiating factor was further eliminated. Almost all major franchises were released on both simultaneously.
Third major event was the disproportionate increase of costs in relation to the required critical mass of userbase to support profitability. 100 million PS1 gamers were a much healthier number than 100 million PS4 gamers to ensure profitability for the swarms of games released that require more time and money to make. Also the manufacturing costs of the console is not allowing for healthy price drops.
A €90 PS1 or a €120 PS2 was a great price for someone who wanted to buy party games like Singstar or Eye Toy or Buzz!. The PS1 and PS2 seemed like high tech consoles you could buy for a steal and you had access to all kinds of games of which a great deal was only available there. It was the best product for very high adoption suited for everyone.
Now with PS5, they need to find ways to sell that €500 console they can't cost reduce, to more people. They need to invest more in high cost games to convince that €500 is worthwhile. They don't have the required critical mass that is proportionate to the costs of game production to ensure a healthy room for profits, and almost all third party games are released everywhere.
But the PS's selling point was it's ability to offer high tech gaming (at launch), the most popular franchises and games for everyone. All these were covered throughout it's lifecycle in stages of gradual adaptability and progression . The stage of high tech gaming (early adoption) reaching the ultra casual (late stages). A PS can't be PS if it misses any of these stages. It kind of got it with PS5 at launch, but it misses the progression of PS1 and PS2. If Sony released a weak console like the Series S to sell cheaply, it probably wouldn't have gone far either because it would have missed the initial expectations that made PS appear like an affordable high tech product that both PS1 and PS2 were at least in the eyes of the public
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